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Record Coverage in New Broadcast Plan

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USSA

2014-11-26 09:06

The USSA's partnership with NBC Sports and Universal Sports will showcase the USSA’s Olympic stars in a record 69 of hours of coverage this season across NBC, NBCSN, and Universal Sports, plus additional digital coverage on NBC Sports Live Extra, UniversalSports.com and the USSA’s family of websites. (Photo: Getty Images)

PARK CITY, UT (Nov. 26) – The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports Network will provide unprecedented coverage of the 2014-15 U.S. ski and snowboarding season, highlighted by the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships at Vail/Beaver Creek. The partnership will showcase the USSA’s Olympic stars in a record 69 of hours of coverage this season across NBC, NBCSN, and Universal Sports, plus additional digital coverage on NBC Sports Live Extra, UniversalSports.com and the USSA’s family of websites. It’s the largest coverage plan ever for USSA events, the result of the USSA’s innovative global partnerships to bring more ski and snowboarding broadcast coverage to the USA.

HIGHLIGHTS

The USSA, NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports Network will provide an unprecedented 69 hours of skiing and snowboarding broadcast coverage this season from USSA events, plus additional digital coverage on NBC Sports Live Extra, UniversalSports.com and the USSA family of websites.

Record Coverage: NBC will broadcast 18 hours of USSA coverage this season, the most ever for the network and the largest ski and snowboarding coverage in American history. NBCSN will televise 29 hours, while Universal Sports will present 22 hours of the 2014-15 USSA season, plus its global World Cup schedule.

USSA Event Properties: The coverage is a collection USSA-owned property such as the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational, Audi Birds of Prey, freestyle World Cups in Lake Placid and Deer Valley Resort and the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, as well as broadcast rights the USSA has acquired in an innovative global partnership for the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.

Grand Prix: Olympic champions like Maddie Bowman, Joss Christensen, Kelly Clark, Sage Kotsenburg and David Wise will be showcased with more than a dozen hours of coverage of the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, now entering its 19th season as the world’s longest running winter action sports tour.

Ratings Boost: The schedule represents a 30% increase in coverage for USSA events, coming on the heels of a 20% increase in ratings last season.

Live from Vail/Beaver Creek: Highlighting the partnership is a record 30 hours of live coverage across the three networks for the 2015 Audi FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, including live coverage of every event for the first time in history. The coverage will showcase U.S. Ski Team Olympic champions like Ted Ligety, Bode Miller, Julia Mancuso, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.

Live Streaming:NBC Sports Live Extra – NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices and tablets – will stream all programming that airs on NBC and NBCSN as well as select events not airing live on NBC or NBCSN. UniversalSports.com will live stream all programming that airs on Universal Sports in addition to other select USSA events.

Rights Extension: In addition to unprecedented coverage this season, USSA has extended its media-rights partnerships with both NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports. USSA’s partnership with NBC, which began in 1998, now extends through 2019, including the 2017 Audi FIS Ski World Cup Finals in Aspen and the 2019 World Championships in snowboarding, freeskiing and freestyle at Park City.

Universal Sports Network’s extended partnership with USSA includes rights to select domestic USSA events and the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. In addition to USSA events, Universal Sports showcases a large lineup of international ski and snowboard competitions every year. Through their agreements with FIS and European Broadcast Union, Universal Sports’ alpine coverage includes 66 FIS Alpine World Cup events offering more than 100 hours of exclusive television coverage and 250 hours of live streaming coverage on UniversalSports.com during the 2014-15 season.

QUOTES

Tiger Shaw, President and CEO, U.S. Ski and Snowboard AssociationNBC Sports Group has been a loyal partner since 1998 and provides us with a platform to tell the story of our sport heroes. This expansion will bring the American public significantly enhanced coverage of skiing and snowboarding, including annual domestic World Cups, the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, World Championships and U.S. Championships. We’re proud of this plan and also bullish on the state of our business to be able to deliver this record-setting coverage with our partners at NBC Sports and Universal Sports Network.

Michael Jaquet, Chief Marketing Officer, U.S. Ski and Snowboard AssociationThis is a game-changing deal for the USSA, coming on the heels of a 20% increase in ratings last season. We now have a great partnership for the next five years that delivers more content to more viewers than ever before in the history of our sports. Our partners at NBC Sports and Universal Sports are heavily invested in the success of our Olympic medalists in a new deal that benefits us at USSA, but most of all the fans of skiing and snowboarding.

Jon Miller, President, Programming, NBC Sports & NBCSNWe’re thrilled to present record levels of U.S. ski and snowboard programming this season across our broadcast, cable and digital platforms, including the Alpine World Championships from Vail. Whether they’re at home, on the chairlift or at the lodge, ski and snowboarding fans will now have more access than ever to the world’s best ski and snowboarding athletes.

Robert James, Senior Vice President, Content and Communications, Universal Sports:As the home of the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup, Universal Sports is proud to expand its partnership with USSA and bring daily live coverage of next year’s World Championships in Vail/Beaver Creek. We look forward showcasing the world’s best skiers to our viewers nationwide.